


i tried my best (it wasn’t much)

by hugebitch



Category: Dresden Files
Genre: F/M, allusions to past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-22
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2019-03-07 22:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13444728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugebitch/pseuds/hugebitch
Summary: After the fight on the train, Nicodemus and Deirdre begin the slow process of trying to salvage a ruined plan and getting back all the way onto their bullshit.Set during the closing moments of Death Masks.Title is from “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen (again) and is a perpetual mood.





	i tried my best (it wasn’t much)

The wind screamed past him as Deirdre whipped him back onto the train, so quick that he had to take a moment to get his bearing. That wasn’t the easiest thing to do on a moving freight train, but he managed, and once he was steady he turned his attention to her. She was fuming, both sets of eyes narrowed.

“They got away,” she spat. Her mouth pressed into a hard line, and with some effort she spat out the next words. “I tried as best as I could, but they still got away, and they took the Shroud.”

Nicodemus’s lips pulled back from his teeth in an involuntary sneer, but he forced himself to erase it from his face. God didn’t play dice with the universe, and Nicodemus didn’t play zero-sum games with anybody—or anything—inside of it.

“I’m sorry,” Deirdre said. She shook her head, her blades of hair thrashing far more than the simple movement should have caused. “I was trying to get them, but there were too many, and I was scared I would drop you…”

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder. Her scales were smooth to the touch. “It’s not your fault, Deer. If anything, it’s Cassius’s for getting caught. If he were here we would have been able to keep the curse going, and that fight would have been a bit more balanced.” There would have to be a reckoning when Cassius found his way back to the order, for both that negligence and for betraying them once he was caught. And, really, Deirdre was far from his “little bitch”.

Irritation tightened the corners of his mouth as he thought of the decomissioned Denarian, and for a long moment he and Deirdre stood in silence as the train sped through the night.

Deirdre was the one who broke it, covering his hand on her shoulder with one of her own and rubbing her thumb across his knuckles. “At least Yoshimo is dead,” she said, and smiled. Her steely teeth reflected the moonlight. There was still tension around her eyes, but she shrugged. “Maybe Carpenter, too.”

“He did fall pretty hard,” Nicodemus agreed. “It wouldn’t surprise me.” He glanced around and saw nothing but a plan that had fallen apart and was long past the point where there was something to be gained from trying to put it back together. “Let’s get out of here.”

Deirdre’s smile faded. “But… the Squires.”

Nicodemus shrugged. “If they’re worth their mettle they’ll figure a way out. If not, then, well, we don’t need the deadweight.” That didn’t seem to soothe her worries completely, but it worked well enough for her to drop the issue and let her battle form fade. She was much easier to carry without the meters of bladed hair in the way, and he scooped her up, bridal-style, and stepped off the side of the train with no further fanfare. The jetstream tried to knock them off course, but Anduriel was strong enough to resist it, and in a second they were in the air, far above the petty concerns of the mortal world. They were moving slower now, but still quick enough for the night air to swirl around them, cool and inviting. Up this high and this far out from the city, the stars were even more visible.

Deirdre wrapped an arm around his neck, and, resting her head against his chest, said quietly, “It’s always so peaceful up here. Makes me wish I could fly on my own.”

“I’d offer to trade you for the day, but…”

Deirdre rested her free hand gently over her heart and pressed down. “I know. It’s nothing, Father, don’t worry—just idle fantasies.”

He ducked his head down to press a kiss to the top of hers, and she smiled softly. They didn’t speak much for the rest of the flight home, and Nicodemus used the opportunity to retreat into his own thoughts, figure out the best way to turn this situation into something that would benefit him. His pride stung, of course, but after twenty centuries of dealing with the Knights of the Cross, he had learned to not put all of his eggs in one basket. But Harry Dresden…

Abruptly the feeling of being choked with his Noose came back, and it took a significant amount of concentration to keep his arms where they were. Deirdre wouldn’t appreciate being flung to the ground just because he was semi-flashbacking to one of the most successful murder attempts he’d experienced in the past century.

Deirdre must have felt him tense up, because she reached down to the hand by her knee, interlacing her fingers with his. They stayed like that until they touched down, and when he set her down, she took his arm and they walked like that to the house where they were staying.

They’d had this house for about a century. It was nestled in a row of similar houses, thoroughly indistinguishable from them, and built with grey stone. Nicodemus hadn’t actually purchased it for the aesthetic, but sometimes things lined up nicely like that.

He closed the door behind him and made to walk down the hallway, but Deirdre held him back. Her shoulders tensed as her eyes darted around the hallway, landing on the open living room door. “Somebody’s here.”

“You know,” an irritatingly familiar sweet voice said, “The short one’s ticket to Chicago was only one-way. Almost like he knew he wouldn’t be coming back home.” There was a soft click as a light went on, and Nicodemus was greeted with the sight of his wife sitting on the back of the couch, legs crossed, her blazer hung over the armrest. She was looking smugger than usual, which made her look younger than usual—with her tiny frame and soft face, it wasn’t odd for people to mistake her for a high-schooler, but with that dumb look on her face he wouldn’t be surprised if the same people guessed even lower.

“Tessa,” he said without any warmth. “So good to see you again, dearest.”

“Oh, Nicodemus, honey, you know I’d never pass up on an opportunity to help you with your marvelous plans that you think up with your big man brain. Anyway, ten to one odds that you just killed Shorty, right?”

Nicodemus glared at her and didn’t respond.

“Mother—” Deirdre started, but Tessa cut her off with a laugh.

“Wow, big man brain, tiny man mouth. Anyway, as fun and sexy as that must have been for you, I am here to retroactively ruin everything.” She beamed at him and said her next sentence in a sugary sweet tone. “He’s probably in Heaven with all the little angels now, thinking about what good choices he made.”

“Thanks so much for taking the time out of your schedule to come gloat,” Nicodemus bit out, the bitterness from earlier returning with a vengeance. He could feel the concerned look Deirdre was giving him, but he was too far gone to care. “Any other reason why you’re here?” 

Tessa tilted her head to the side. “You know, Nicodemus, as petty and ridiculous as trying to prove your independence via plague-starting is, especially when you just go ahead and fail miserably…” She trailed off and looked to the side, her lips pressed together. She lost some of the presence that she had, and for once only seemed to take up the space in the world that her body occupied. Being as she was four-nine and ninety-odd pounds, it wasn’t a whole lot of space. He felt drawn closer to her, like it would be harder to hear her next words—and they did come out quieter. “I did miss you. A tiny little bit.”

What was he supposed to say to that? He shifted, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, I’m here. This is my house, so… I can presumably stay here for… some time… or we could go to your house, or…”

He had never been more grateful for somebody stomping on his foot as he was when Deirdre stomped on his foot.

“Why don’t you just fill me in and then we can pretend like the last ten seconds didn’t happen,” Tessa offered.

“That works.” He shifted his weight and started talking, giving her the barest amount of information she needed to understand the situation. “I thought that it would be a good idea to start a plague in Carpenter’s hometown, but didn’t account for his allies. It would probably have gone… not as badly… if you and Rosanna had been here, but it’s over and done with now. We had the Shroud, we lost it, and the local organized crime scene here is much more organized than usual these days.”

“I could do something about that,” Tessa murmured.

He shrugged. “If you like. But there’s also Dresden to consider,” he added. When Tessa raised an eyebrow, he said, “Talented local wizard. The usual misguided sense of morality that’s ultimately self-centered. I offered him a Coin, but he declined.” He left out the bits that she didn’t need to know, like how Dresden had figured out how to use the Noose, that he’d escaped the Babbaras curse, and that his abs looked really good when his rented formalwear was soaking wet and clinging to him.

“I think we should tie him up to a chair and then smash his kneecaps and then stab him in the eyes with a utility knife,” Deirdre said, promptly and enthusiastically.

Nicodemus smiled, both at her adorable little murderface and at the mental image. “We could flay him,” he suggested. “It’s been a long time since we did that.”

“Okay, but the kneecaps thing is important. And I should break his hands, too, so he can’t hurt you again—”

Tessa didn’t physically raise an eyebrow, but, spiritually, she did. “He hurt you?”

Deirdre blanched, the gleeful look leaving her face in a split second. “No! I was speaking hypothetically. I mean, technically he did hurt us by wrecking our plan and stealing the Shroud, and, as inherently flawed humans in an imperfect world full of misunderstandings, every action we take is one that hurts our fellow man, and he did throw Father into a wall…”

Tessa sighed. “Oh, the horrible and murder-worthy offense of throwing Nicodemus into a wall. Listen, if he’s useful then you shouldn’t kill him until you don’t have a choice. Unless he does something really bad, like saying that Beyoncé was at her artistic peak during the Destiny’s Child era.”

“Yes, Mother,” Deirdre sighed. “Sorry, Father, I got carried away.”

“I did too, neshama, don’t worry about it.” Nicodemus turned to Tessa. “Well, Mrs. Know-It-All, what do you think we should do?”

“You do realize that this makes you Mr. Know-It-All, and that’s kind of a self burn, right?” Tessa shook her head. “I have some ideas. Settle down.”

Nicodemus sighed and went to sit on the couch. When Tessa looked down at him and smirked, he wrapped an arm around her waist and yanked her down, hard, stifling a grin when she let out an undignified squawk.

“So,” he said like nothing had happened, “Your ideas?” Deirdre, who had settled down on the other end of the couch, gave him a small frown. She didn’t like to watch them fight, and, since he cared far more about her well-being than most things, he removed his arm from Tessa’s torso so she could sit up.

She did so, shooting a glare at him as she scrambled into an upright position. “Kill two birds with one stone and burn Carpenter’s house down, killing Dresden when he shows up to help his friend. They live in the same city, they’re both invested in dealings outside of the mundane, and Dresden does have that little hero complex you mentioned.”

It was, in terms of the technical alone, a solid plan. But Nicodemus shook his head. “There’s a good chance that he’s dead.” He didn’t mention that he wanted to kill the man himself, in hand-to-hand combat, as a point of pride. He had a tally of Knights who had fallen to his blade, and he didn’t want to skew it. Tessa wouldn’t understand.

She didn’t seem too swayed by his rebuttal, either. “So what? Burn the house anyway. Nice Catholic man his age, he has a wife back there, popping out little ones like some kind of potato firing gun. And men like Dresden just love saving women, because after the rescue is when she lies back and spreads her—” She shook her head violently. “Never mind.”

“Mother,” Deirdre said quietly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” Tessa snapped. “I’m fine.”

“Do you want a hug?”

Tessa was quiet for a moment, and then, very carefully, said, “A hug sounds nice.”

Deirdre shifted over on the couch and wrapped an arm around Tessa’s shoulders, and Nicodemus let his wife pull him in and slipped his arm around her waist.

“I have to do all the thinking in this family,” Tessa muttered, pressing her face into his side. She sniffed. “New cologne?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I’ll get back to you on that.” She smiled against him as she reached up to play with Deirdre’s hair, and he could feel the curve of her lips even through his shirt. The three of them were attuned to each other in a way no other family ever could be. Even Carpenter would never—

Wait.

That was it.

“You were right, honey,” Nicodemus said. “About hitting Carpenter’s house. But we’re not going to burn it down—I have another idea.”


End file.
